


Everywhere

by stardustandswimmingpools



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, I don't think it is, Introspection, Light Angst, Moments, No Dialogue, after rose leaves, almost, dwelling, past and implied tenrose but all canon, post-martha but pre-donna, potentially a misrepresentation of how ten feels about martha, the doctor is dwelling, the word morose is in here, uhhh what's the word??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 11:57:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12747843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustandswimmingpools/pseuds/stardustandswimmingpools
Summary: The Doctor sees Rose everywhere.





	Everywhere

**Author's Note:**

> god he's in love with her  
> there's no dialogue in this because literally the only character actually present is the Doctor, and honestly, the no-dialogue thing was SO weird for me that there's like one paragraph of him talking to himself. because...that's how i do things around here. it's sort of different from my usual...stuff...but it's kinda real

Every day the Doctor wakes up, glances about, and newly realizes that Rose is gone. It's like Sisyphus — trudging through the day without Rose, and just as he wakes up the following day, ready for adventure, it hits him again.

Martha most absolutely doesn't want to hear about Rose. The Doctor can see this, can feel the coldness with which Martha receives Rose’s name. He resents her for this, though he understands. And her stoicism doesn't keep him from bringing her up. He can't help it — it's all he can do not to speak of her constantly.

She's everywhere. In everything he does, everywhere he goes, everyone he meets. There's just a bit of Rose, enough that it feels like she's  _ following  _ him. It makes his hearts clench up like they've been crushed underfoot.

When they run into Jack — more accurately, when Jack runs into them, literally, and plows them into the end of the universe — the Doctor, still at an overwhelming unease with the immortal man, can't help but feel a wash of normalcy when Jack asks about Rose.

It hurts to talk about her, but more so to avoid her. And he genuinely breaks into a grin when he says her name. 

The moment after, an ache fills his gut. Jack doesn't know — couldn't possibly know that Rose hadn't chosen to leave. Trapped. The word itself, the Doctor muses, is the sort of word that would trap other words. The harsh  _ tr _ , opening into the  _ a _ just before slamming shut with a _ p _ . Trapped.

As in, can't leave. 

Christ.

  
  


One more minute, he thinks, on one of those evenings. Martha’s gone off to bed now, and it's just the Doctor, alone with his thoughts and the TARDIS. Even she, with the lingering sensation of Rose no doubt racing through her wiring, must tire of the Doctor’s incessant longing. But it can't be helped, and won't: occasionally the Doctor dares to hope that if only he believes hard enough, he'll see her again. After all, impossible things happen to him all the time. 

So why does this one feel so especially hard to break?

Either way, he's sat on the floor (chairs are a nuisance to sort out), repeatedly tossing his sonic screwdriver in the air before catching it in his palm. The mundane activity sends his mind awhirl, as so often it tends to do. 

One more minute. Ten more seconds. That’s all he would've needed. Those three words. 

Except, someway, deep inside his aching heart or two, he knows this: he could've stood there, gazing at Rose, for eons, and never said it. The words at the tip of his tongue would never had escaped.

Still, by himself, he hasn't tried them out. They're always there: sometimes further hidden, sometimes in neon blinking lights, always present. But never out loud. Never in the air in front of him, floating about and whatever. They're glued to the roof of his mouth.

“Rose Tyler,” the Doctor sighs. Her name feels almost like saying it. The three words. It's the same feeling. Of warmth expanding through his chest from his sternum. Only this one is replaced by a dull throb he's accustomed to by now.

Poor, dear, wonderful Martha, brilliant, dedicated Martha. She is clever and creative and adventurous and brilliant and — 

She is not Rose Tyler.

And this is by no fault of her own, but it is her greatest shortcoming.

Martha cannot replace Rose. The Doctor’s not even sure that's why he’d taken her along. But if it is, well, he's quite learned his lesson.

Because replacing Rose would imply giving up hope, and that is the thing the Doctor never will do.

_ If I believe in one thing, I believe in her. _

Still true. Always true. Those words always resounding, recalled to the front of the mind and just as true, perhaps more so now than they had been against Satan himself.

God, what a horrible ache.

  
  


Martha laughs like she's in a constant state of disbelief, extraordinary disbelief where she goes so far round incredulity that she believes it anyway. She's sharp, that one. Bright and witty and quick. Very good at adapting. She understands things — people, societies, cultures, and in particular, him.

This grates at the Doctor more than it certainly ought to.

He doesn't tell her anything about Rose, ever. Those stories are his; they belong to him, to his two hearts and to his spaceship and to her, locked off in a parallel universe. Martha will take them and twist them and toss them away.

He hates how awfully he feels towards Martha. She is absolutely wonderful, really. A gem. And traveling with her is exciting and new and, well, and just fine.

Rose Tyler is everywhere.

If he ever sees her again, the Doctor muses, that might be the first thing he says.  _ Rose, you're everywhere. I tried to ignore you —  _ a blatant lie —  _ but you've been inevitable. Blimey, I don't know if I ought to believe you're even here now: could be I'm dreaming you up again. _

  
  


Sometimes he just gets carried away.

Post-everything, alone once more, the Doctor floats about in the TARDIS, silence engulfing him as he drifts through the Vortex. She hums contentedly. The Doctor begins to talk.

“You know,” he says conversationally — as if there's another soul in the TARDIS apart from his own, “ I do know how to fly her. The TARDIS. I'm quite good at it. It's only the parking brake I always tend to forget. But really, who needs that? What's a brake got to do with parking anyhow? You park and you stop, that's all. And beside that, the parking brake is on the opposite bloody side of the control panel, so even if I wanted to use it, I'd be up a creek. I’d say you could pull it, but like I said, those things are just —”

He looks up suddenly, sharply, and turns about himself surveying the TARDIS. For just a second; a fraction of a second, less, there had been a spark of recognition. Him or the TARDIS, he's not sure: sitting on the floor makes him pick up loads of vibrations and readings through the floor. He ignores them. But this one, like a flare through his chest, shocks him for a moment to his feet.

“What?” He's confused, more than anything. He crosses the floor, scans the screen. “Nothing...like it ought to be...shouldn't have anything living out here in the Vortex, that's it…” he shakes his head. “Right. Enough of this. Sulking! Stop it!” He smacks himself against the side of the head once, sharply. “Revert! Go have some adventures! Make friends! Off you are. That's it. Not Earth. What about Japo 20.3, eh? Or the third moon cycle of Aguidon. Birthdays, weddings, funerals, proposals, anniversaries, first days at school, and you're sitting here in a bloody box, sulking! What sort of Doctor are you?”

The silence in response is so deafening that it brings to attention just how desperately the Doctor needs company. Someone to talk to, but more than that, someone to reply. Someone to remind him he's still here, and not talking to air.

_ But also _ , he thinks morosely,  _ someone who won't fancy me _ .

And, for good measure, whom he won't fancy.

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i'm on tumblr @vivilevone, you can hit me up there and we can talk all things Doctor Who (except I haven't seen seasons 9 or 10 yet, so no spoilers there). cheers!


End file.
